148 Bresc
the goal of which was to extend the forms of democracy and establish a veri-
table federalism. These “helvetic” models of reconstructing the state from the
bottom up were set in motion by leagues between cities during the insurrec-
tion against the Angevins.
These attempts were thwarted by the threat of the Neapolitans and appeals
made to the king of Aragon, but they were hardly the only ones to occur be-
tween the end of the thirteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth.10
10 Thomas A. Brady, Turning Swiss. Cities and Empire, 1450–1550 (Cambridge, 1985).
Figure 5.3 Map of Corsica.